Good news! Just in time for the next hard Brexit border in October as we impose a huge stack of paperwork on meat and animal products. And then the new biometrics system for people.
I am sure that we will get to the point where with enough practice and "FFS just make this work" compromises we can cut the delays largely back to where they were. In part by basically abandoning much of our TCA for stuff inbound to the UK. Still there for export of course, but we don't want to export to the horrid EU anyway.
Last time they tried a wanky rhyming couplet that had no legs was 'Maggie Thatcher Milk Snatcher'
She outlived the rhyme by 13 years.
Edstone worked because it told a truth
Dementia tax nearly saw off May. It's worth striving for these things even if successes are rare. Trump understands this - sleepy Joe etc.
I remain unconvinced May lost because of her social care policy. It was a terrible campaign for all sorts of reasons. Dementia tax successfully gave an alibi to Lynton Crosby.
The oft-forgotten factor was not one but two terrorist outrages during the 2017 election campaign, and Conservative denials that taking an axe to police numbers played any part. It was an insult to voters' intelligence, or at least their common sense.
The actual problem is that reports of potential terrorism are often indistinguishable from reports of young men acting out, or mental health issues.
Should we arrest every idiot who thinks that wearing clothing with references to Osama and ISIS? Everyone who puts "Death To The West!" on Facebook? Everyone who supports Romanian Rape Guy on Twatter?
True, although we often hear after the event that the attacker was known to MI5. I don't have the answer although it seems to me reasonable to expect the security services to spot known zealots buying bomb precursors, even if they cannot tell which nutter will make a spur of the moment decision to pick up a kitchen knife or swerve his van into a bus queue.
If we took the list of those on the Mi5 watch list, and watched them all with a rotating 24 surveillance, phone taps etc. a couple of things would happen.
1) The MI5 budget would be bigger than the NHS 2) The traffic jams from the surveliance vehicles would get out of hand. 3) The price of rusty old vans to do surveillance from would soar to the point of collapsing the handyman businesses.
Bomb precursors are not easy to notice - if you are a chemist, looking at the cleaning and chemicals section in a hardware store... it's either frightening or amusing. Depends on what you find funny.
My brother *accidentally* made explosives, during some home chemistry, when we were kids.
You'll note that the recent trend in these things is, as you say, knifes and vehicles. Which are impossible to distinguish from the background signal....
The problem is that, since radicalisation is a spiral, the early stages are the same for "edgy memes" and "bright eyed and willing to kill"
That's right, 24-hour surveillance is impractical, so we shouldn't do that. Perhaps Leon's AI could help, with computers keeping an eye on suspects' spending to flag any sudden interest in cleaning products, fireworks or warehouses.
One thing that disturbs me about the Shemima Begum affair is apparently no-one thought to keep an eye out for small groups of children buying one-way tickets to war zones.
Because before that, small groups of children travelling to war zones wasn't a problem.
After 9/11 a general was giving evidence to a Senate committee. After being harangued for a while about how unprepared they were, he pointed out the following.
1) Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russians were giving up on their bomber force. 2) After the collapse, they didn't deploy their bombers to the Northern bases that could actually reach the US. One way. 3) Given most of the bombers were propellor driven, this would mean that a plane based attack on the US would take *days* to implement. 4) If he had come to the Senate committee on 9/10 with a request for funding to mount a 24/7 air defence setup, to shoot down civilian airliners that are hijacked, he would have been locked up as a dangerous madman.
What's the word on the ground from Tory activists? Presumably they know they'll lose S&F, but what about the other two? Are they bothering to campaign much?
Selby is the most interesting contest. Lab candidate Keir Mather is 25yo. That's five years younger than Stephen Twigg was when he beat Michael Portillo, overturning a majority of 15.563 (31.8%) . A Tory hold a possibility? But I might want a better price than 6.4.
Another question: by what procedure did the three MPs resign their seats? Does anybody know? Can they explain, please, in 1-2 sentences. Specifically: who filed what paper with what office, who accepted the resignation, and where was the decision gazetted?
I've long held the view that the British so-called constitution (which only mental contortionists who've obediently pre-decided it's a constitution think actually is one) is made up as they go along. This current example seems grist to my mill. Did any of the three MPs actually take the Chiltern Hundreds or Manor of Northstead? No? Then what did they do? What changed, when, and who decided?
I reckon a bet on the Tories on all three is value at those odds. (Singles, not a treble!). I'd beg surprised if they lost all three.
I have done this, very modestly, except for Somerton - which I think is impossible. Uxbridge and Selby are in the realm of arguable. Though I expect probably to lose.
I think there’s a better-than-the-odds chance they’ll hold Selby.
The BBC and LBC have been bigging up the ULEZ issue today. If they and HY are right it is a game changer. Starmer has also had a shocking week whereas Rishi has had a good run out with his university pitch, he and Suella have had great media coverage for the boats and tomorrow he will get some great inflation results.
Harold Wilson was right. A week is a long time in politics. A week where Rishi has knocked it out of the park.
WIth no disrespect meant, I genuinely don't know how far into your cheek your tongue is with these posts.
By Friday morning we shall see.
You can't deny that the Conservatives have had some excellent copy this week whilst Starmer-Labour have tied themselves in knots. Kuennsberg set a trap and he fell into it. Sir Kid Starver is a fantastic slur that Rishi is going to beat him around the head with tomorrow at PMQs. It doesn't matter that the two child policy is Osborne's invention, Starmer now owns it and the nation hates him for it. ULEZ according to HY and the BBC is a real vote loser for Uxbridge. FWIW I don't believe it will feature in the GE.
The idea that the 2 child policy is now owned by Starmer and “the nation hates him for it” does not seem to accord with reality. Do you have any polling to support this view?
I don’t see any sign that it’s hurt Starmer.
Good morning
I posted the polling on this yesterday which shows 60% support for the policy and majority across parties
Dismal figures, reflecting two dismal facts: pluralities generally support making life harder for those they don't know and care about; our birth rates are so awful that most people hardly know anyone with 3 or more children and are not wealthy.
It is incredible how two children has become the norm, and not just in this country. My wife's family is very large - her parents come from Sri Lanka and her dad was one of ten siblings and her mum one of six. So there are too many cousins for me to keep track of, living in Sri Lanka, the UK, Australia, the US and the Middle East. A real range of incomes too, from people living wealthy lives in the west to working class lives in Sri Lanka. Yet out of this huge extended family, my wife is one of only two, as far as I know, to have three children. The other is her cousin who lives a fairly comfortable middle class life in Sri Lanka. Of course this implies a declining population. I note that the UN data show Sri Lankan children/woman [under] 2 now and the population declining from the mid 2030s. Personally I like having 3 children - and while we are well off I grew up one of 3 in a family that wasn't so I don't think you need money to have more children although of course it helps. But most people seem to think otherwise. I think the government should nudge people to having more if they want, to arrest our population decline. The current policy is nuts.
Firstly, until the 1960s there was not a great deal most people could do to control family size, other than abstain. Such contraceptives as were available were so unreliable as to fall to the laws of large numbers. Second, for some, it makes sense to have lots of children to use as free labour and to make up for the ones that die young. There may also have been religious imperatives (every sperm is sacred, etc).
But now, there are many struggling families who resent paying for those idle wasters on the corner with no job and 17 children, not to mention a better council house (or any council house).
And in future, there will doubtless be Coutts customers to point out racial discrepancies in child benefit receipts.
PLEASE do not use "less than" signs in your posts because it screws up formatting when they are wrongly interpreted as html tags.
On the whole prosperity is the most reliable contraception. Rates started falling before the pill.
The number of idle wasters with a billion children is small. A good number of poorer households with +2 children do so because they prioritise family life more than a lot of middle class people do and have fewer pointless distractions. (I live in an area of adequate social housing and less expensive private ownership - essential to civilised existence).
An oddity which ought to be noticed more than it is is that abortion rates are so gigantic (a third to a quarter of all pregnancies), and little sign of reduction, in exactly that era of human history when the simplest application of common sense would render it rare as well as safe and legal. It is a massively ignored issue.
As a common feature of life which can't make anyone happy it deserves more attention.
The problem with trying to reduce abortion, is that you then attract, like flies to rotting meat, the anti-abortion nutters.
In a sane world, a campaign to emphasise contraception, both parties being responsible etc would yield non-trivial benefits in reduced medical costs and complications. But with the gibbering loons around.
I take your point. But the 'never abortion' group is small. The potential size of the 'safe, legal and rare' (the Bill Clinton aphorism) is large. It would maximally increase human happiness, as well as assisting the substantial group of people (both religious and not) who think the balance of rights as between the unborn and the rest of us has tipped too far, but don't want to be marked out as extremists.
But sadly, moderation is a hard thing to find on this.
A relative had a premature child. Under the abortion limit (24 weeks). I was in the hospital visiting.
A nurse came in and looked at the clipboard. She said "This child shouldn't have been resuscitated". The father was gobsmacked. I pointed out that the child wasn't resuscitated. The nurse became quite agitated and repeated the statement as if it was a mantra.
Talking about it later the father and I agreed that it was almost certainly that she saw the child as a Bad Fact. Something which she saw as contradicting her world view.
I read Harry Potter with the child in question, these days, and she has a soft spot for Hufflepuff. Since the never seem to get anything good.
And yet, given the above, I support the 24 week limit.
I think medical practice has recognised that problem, and is starting to address it ?
For example, training of how to communicate the diagnosis of conditions like Down's syndrome during pregnancy now tries to ensure it's done without imposing expectations (explicit or otherwise) on the parent. @Foxy probably knows more about this.
In this case, I think the nurse believed that a child could not survive without massive intervention before 24 weeks. And shouldn't, otherwise abortion at that point would murder. So She was mentally (if I am right) trying to protect the right to abortion.
Not sure what you can do about political/religious beliefs. Humans gonna human.
Training in how to communicate with patients. It ought not to be that difficult.
So you want everyone in the NHS to have a nuanced, flexible, yet decent, yet rational approach to moral issues?
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
What is the Met's new slogan? "Abstain or rape" would have obvious drawbacks. Are there any other perfectly legal activities the Met should ban? Scrapping their old cars, for instance, as scrap metal was often a front for armed robbers, or having their hair cut, since barbers might be a front for money-laundering?
My guess is this policy will be welcomed only by those who want prostitution outlawed anyway.
There are a whole raft of legal things that police officers can't do. Because of potential conflicts of interest and hiding the police to a higher standard than the general public.
I remain sceptical that asking those police officers who can't get it at home to spend their spare time chasing women instead of paying for sex will help. Rather the opposite, perhaps, as some of those being pursued will doubtless see this male attention as unwelcome to the point of harassment.
This policy might be well-intentioned but sounds recklessly naive and likely counterproductive.
We have become a country that isn't generous to itself, where people are so conditioned to fear losing things themselves that they refuse to extend help to others. This is not the mindset of a country that will succeed. It is the mindset of a country in a death spiral. It's the same mindset that gave us Brexit, of course. Sad.
This is the reality of today's polity. Years of right wing positioning via tabloid journalism has created a nation of people embittered and hardened. Bemoaning their lot whilst demanding policies which make their lot worse. Meanwhile the man waltzes away having taken ever more money.
BJO and his ilk demand that the opposition go All In on ending this depravity. Just tell people they will make the man pay and all will be good. Except that it won't - most voters are conditioned to favour the needs of the man having been told the man's needs are their needs (e.g. STOP THE BOATS).
The first step has to be to win power. Blair understood this, as did much of the Labour movement. The problem with Corbynism and post-Corbynism is that crankies swept in and radicalised so many in the movement (mea culpa) even if only briefly. Which is how we find ourselves here. The overton window is way over to the right, you only win by being electable within the window, hence the need to compromise a long way to move it back to the centre.
I think this is right but perhaps you are putting too much weight on Tory propaganda and not enough on innate human selfishness, which seems to have become especially prominent in this country recently. Of course people have been preached a "me first" message, but they have been very receptive to it. It's sad because they are only harming themselves, ultimately.
What's the word on the ground from Tory activists? Presumably they know they'll lose S&F, but what about the other two? Are they bothering to campaign much?
Selby is the most interesting contest. Lab candidate Keir Mather is 25yo. That's five years younger than Stephen Twigg was when he beat Michael Portillo, overturning a majority of 15.563 (31.8%) . A Tory hold a possibility? But I might want a better price than 6.4.
Another question: by what procedure did the three MPs resign their seats? Does anybody know? Can they explain, please, in 1-2 sentences. Specifically: who filed what paper with what office, who accepted the resignation, and where was the decision gazetted?
I've long held the view that the British so-called constitution (which only mental contortionists who've obediently pre-decided it's a constitution think actually is one) is made up as they go along. This current example seems grist to my mill. Did any of the three MPs actually take the Chiltern Hundreds or Manor of Northstead? No? Then what did they do? What changed, when, and who decided?
A Member wishing to resign applies to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for one of the offices, which he or she retains until the Chancellor appoints another applicant or until the holder applies for release from it. (Every new warrant issued revokes the previous holder).
It is usual to grant the offices alternately; as this enables two Members to retire at precisely the same time. Indeed, on 17 December 1985, fifteen Ulster Unionist MPs resigned on the same day.
Last time they tried a wanky rhyming couplet that had no legs was 'Maggie Thatcher Milk Snatcher'
She outlived the rhyme by 13 years.
Edstone worked because it told a truth
Dementia tax nearly saw off May. It's worth striving for these things even if successes are rare. Trump understands this - sleepy Joe etc.
I remain unconvinced May lost because of her social care policy. It was a terrible campaign for all sorts of reasons. Dementia tax successfully gave an alibi to Lynton Crosby.
The oft-forgotten factor was not one but two terrorist outrages during the 2017 election campaign, and Conservative denials that taking an axe to police numbers played any part. It was an insult to voters' intelligence, or at least their common sense.
The actual problem is that reports of potential terrorism are often indistinguishable from reports of young men acting out, or mental health issues.
Should we arrest every idiot who thinks that wearing clothing with references to Osama and ISIS? Everyone who puts "Death To The West!" on Facebook? Everyone who supports Romanian Rape Guy on Twatter?
True, although we often hear after the event that the attacker was known to MI5. I don't have the answer although it seems to me reasonable to expect the security services to spot known zealots buying bomb precursors, even if they cannot tell which nutter will make a spur of the moment decision to pick up a kitchen knife or swerve his van into a bus queue.
If we took the list of those on the Mi5 watch list, and watched them all with a rotating 24 surveillance, phone taps etc. a couple of things would happen.
1) The MI5 budget would be bigger than the NHS 2) The traffic jams from the surveliance vehicles would get out of hand. 3) The price of rusty old vans to do surveillance from would soar to the point of collapsing the handyman businesses.
Bomb precursors are not easy to notice - if you are a chemist, looking at the cleaning and chemicals section in a hardware store... it's either frightening or amusing. Depends on what you find funny.
My brother *accidentally* made explosives, during some home chemistry, when we were kids.
You'll note that the recent trend in these things is, as you say, knifes and vehicles. Which are impossible to distinguish from the background signal....
The problem is that, since radicalisation is a spiral, the early stages are the same for "edgy memes" and "bright eyed and willing to kill"
That's right, 24-hour surveillance is impractical, so we shouldn't do that. Perhaps Leon's AI could help, with computers keeping an eye on suspects' spending to flag any sudden interest in cleaning products, fireworks or warehouses.
One thing that disturbs me about the Shemima Begum affair is apparently no-one thought to keep an eye out for small groups of children buying one-way tickets to war zones.
Because before that, small groups of children travelling to war zones wasn't a problem.
After 9/11 a general was giving evidence to a Senate committee. After being harangued for a while about how unprepared they were, he pointed out the following.
1) Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russians were giving up on their bomber force. 2) After the collapse, they didn't deploy their bombers to the Northern bases that could actually reach the US. One way. 3) Given most of the bombers were propellor driven, this would mean that a plane based attack on the US would take *days* to implement. 4) If he had come to the Senate committee on 9/10 with a request for funding to mount a 24/7 air defence setup, to shoot down civilian airliners that are hijacked, he would have been locked up as a dangerous madman.
Reductio ad absurdum. Note your step 4 is not to advocate the USAF be disbanded. By the time Begum went, it was already known that British "volunteers" were pitching up on the ISIS side.
We have become a country that isn't generous to itself, where people are so conditioned to fear losing things themselves that they refuse to extend help to others. This is not the mindset of a country that will succeed. It is the mindset of a country in a death spiral. It's the same mindset that gave us Brexit, of course. Sad.
This is the reality of today's polity. Years of right wing positioning via tabloid journalism has created a nation of people embittered and hardened. Bemoaning their lot whilst demanding policies which make their lot worse. Meanwhile the man waltzes away having taken ever more money.
BJO and his ilk demand that the opposition go All In on ending this depravity. Just tell people they will make the man pay and all will be good. Except that it won't - most voters are conditioned to favour the needs of the man having been told the man's needs are their needs (e.g. STOP THE BOATS).
The first step has to be to win power. Blair understood this, as did much of the Labour movement. The problem with Corbynism and post-Corbynism is that crankies swept in and radicalised so many in the movement (mea culpa) even if only briefly. Which is how we find ourselves here. The overton window is way over to the right, you only win by being electable within the window, hence the need to compromise a long way to move it back to the centre.
Plus, the great stagnation in the UK since 2008 or so has meant that "there is no money, so your only hope is a zero-sum grab from someone else" is a superfically rational way of looking at the world. 2016 was partly a vote for that; Vote Leave to guard the gates was a much more powerful message than Vote Leave to go out into the world. (Global-minded leavers are another of those groups who were tactically smart but strategically dumb).
What that worldview misses is that it ought to be possible to grow the economy and benefit from those fruits. But instead of sowing the seeds so we can harvest their crops in the near future, we are in a mindset that we might as well eat them now. Flipping that mindset looks like needing some principled dishonesty and a decent slice of luck.
I don't totally agree with this, but it makes the point that we're in a pickle;
My claim is that the UK is now a lot more like Poland than it is like the United States in terms of the kinds of growth it needs to do – driven by improved use of existing technology and inputs, and accumulation of capital, rather than driven primarily by technological advancement. With the exception of a few sectors like AI, we are so far behind the frontier in terms of economic development that worrying about technological progress doesn’t make much sense, and at worst is a serious distraction.
I reckon a bet on the Tories on all three is value at those odds. (Singles, not a treble!). I'd beg surprised if they lost all three.
I have done this, very modestly, except for Somerton - which I think is impossible. Uxbridge and Selby are in the realm of arguable. Though I expect probably to lose.
I think there’s a better-than-the-odds chance they’ll hold Selby.
The BBC and LBC have been bigging up the ULEZ issue today. If they and HY are right it is a game changer. Starmer has also had a shocking week whereas Rishi has had a good run out with his university pitch, he and Suella have had great media coverage for the boats and tomorrow he will get some great inflation results.
Harold Wilson was right. A week is a long time in politics. A week where Rishi has knocked it out of the park.
WIth no disrespect meant, I genuinely don't know how far into your cheek your tongue is with these posts.
By Friday morning we shall see.
You can't deny that the Conservatives have had some excellent copy this week whilst Starmer-Labour have tied themselves in knots. Kuennsberg set a trap and he fell into it. Sir Kid Starver is a fantastic slur that Rishi is going to beat him around the head with tomorrow at PMQs. It doesn't matter that the two child policy is Osborne's invention, Starmer now owns it and the nation hates him for it. ULEZ according to HY and the BBC is a real vote loser for Uxbridge. FWIW I don't believe it will feature in the GE.
The idea that the 2 child policy is now owned by Starmer and “the nation hates him for it” does not seem to accord with reality. Do you have any polling to support this view?
I don’t see any sign that it’s hurt Starmer.
Good morning
I posted the polling on this yesterday which shows 60% support for the policy and majority across parties
Dismal figures, reflecting two dismal facts: pluralities generally support making life harder for those they don't know and care about; our birth rates are so awful that most people hardly know anyone with 3 or more children and are not wealthy.
It is incredible how two children has become the norm, and not just in this country. My wife's family is very large - her parents come from Sri Lanka and her dad was one of ten siblings and her mum one of six. So there are too many cousins for me to keep track of, living in Sri Lanka, the UK, Australia, the US and the Middle East. A real range of incomes too, from people living wealthy lives in the west to working class lives in Sri Lanka. Yet out of this huge extended family, my wife is one of only two, as far as I know, to have three children. The other is her cousin who lives a fairly comfortable middle class life in Sri Lanka. Of course this implies a declining population. I note that the UN data show Sri Lankan children/woman [under] 2 now and the population declining from the mid 2030s. Personally I like having 3 children - and while we are well off I grew up one of 3 in a family that wasn't so I don't think you need money to have more children although of course it helps. But most people seem to think otherwise. I think the government should nudge people to having more if they want, to arrest our population decline. The current policy is nuts.
Firstly, until the 1960s there was not a great deal most people could do to control family size, other than abstain. Such contraceptives as were available were so unreliable as to fall to the laws of large numbers. Second, for some, it makes sense to have lots of children to use as free labour and to make up for the ones that die young. There may also have been religious imperatives (every sperm is sacred, etc).
But now, there are many struggling families who resent paying for those idle wasters on the corner with no job and 17 children, not to mention a better council house (or any council house).
And in future, there will doubtless be Coutts customers to point out racial discrepancies in child benefit receipts.
PLEASE do not use "less than" signs in your posts because it screws up formatting when they are wrongly interpreted as html tags.
On the whole prosperity is the most reliable contraception. Rates started falling before the pill.
The number of idle wasters with a billion children is small. A good number of poorer households with +2 children do so because they prioritise family life more than a lot of middle class people do and have fewer pointless distractions. (I live in an area of adequate social housing and less expensive private ownership - essential to civilised existence).
An oddity which ought to be noticed more than it is is that abortion rates are so gigantic (a third to a quarter of all pregnancies), and little sign of reduction, in exactly that era of human history when the simplest application of common sense would render it rare as well as safe and legal. It is a massively ignored issue.
As a common feature of life which can't make anyone happy it deserves more attention.
The problem with trying to reduce abortion, is that you then attract, like flies to rotting meat, the anti-abortion nutters.
In a sane world, a campaign to emphasise contraception, both parties being responsible etc would yield non-trivial benefits in reduced medical costs and complications. But with the gibbering loons around.
I take your point. But the 'never abortion' group is small. The potential size of the 'safe, legal and rare' (the Bill Clinton aphorism) is large. It would maximally increase human happiness, as well as assisting the substantial group of people (both religious and not) who think the balance of rights as between the unborn and the rest of us has tipped too far, but don't want to be marked out as extremists.
But sadly, moderation is a hard thing to find on this.
A relative had a premature child. Under the abortion limit (24 weeks). I was in the hospital visiting.
A nurse came in and looked at the clipboard. She said "This child shouldn't have been resuscitated". The father was gobsmacked. I pointed out that the child wasn't resuscitated. The nurse became quite agitated and repeated the statement as if it was a mantra.
Talking about it later the father and I agreed that it was almost certainly that she saw the child as a Bad Fact. Something which she saw as contradicting her world view.
I read Harry Potter with the child in question, these days, and she has a soft spot for Hufflepuff. Since the never seem to get anything good.
And yet, given the above, I support the 24 week limit.
I very much hope there are happy endings for all of this.
In terms of numbers, late abortions are not a massive issue. Overwhelmingly abortions are fairly early, and medically unrelated to the health of the unborn child.
There are always going to be complex and unhappy cases. But to maximise human happiness, minimising the number of truly unwanted pregnancies is a no brainer.
I don't agree it's a no brainer. Many, whatever anyone might think about it, don't live their lives exclusively on a basis of wanting Z on day N and then taking the attitude on day N+1 "Great, I've got Z, which is what I wanted and what I still want" (if they get it) or "Oh dearie me, I've got not-Z and this is what I didn't want and still don't want" (if they don't get Z). This includes for major events in their lives.
This is not an attempt to be trite or arsy. This is just the truth. Most people just don't live their lives like that. I could buy into your notion of "truly", but it's not a no brainer.
We have become a country that isn't generous to itself, where people are so conditioned to fear losing things themselves that they refuse to extend help to others. This is not the mindset of a country that will succeed. It is the mindset of a country in a death spiral. It's the same mindset that gave us Brexit, of course. Sad.
Alternatively there is a significant chunk of the population who are being asked to pay taxes to support others in having three+ kids when they do not feel they are able to afford having three+ kids themselves. Unsurprisingly they are not in favour of that.
If the tax system was more like the French one, that supports low and middle income larger families as well as those on benefits, then the views may change. Until then, it is mostly those rich enough to be able to have three+ kids themselves and those on benefits in favour, and most of the middle against.
But part of the reason that those in the middle can't afford to have three children is because of the lack of government support. The reality is that most families would get the support and only the rich are net contributors. They're cutting off their nose to spite their face. Partly this is a result of Tory divide and rule messaging, which sets up middle England against a largely illusory underclass of feckless breeders to persuade those on middle incomes to vote against their own interests. But it is also the result of a defeatist mentality as a country, where we are all simply trying to hold on to what we have rather than making sacrifices for our future common prosperity. Same with private schools incidentally. We are setting ourselves up for national decline, and it is desperately sad.
It is to do with tax and rational self interest, not defeatist mentalities or illusions. Most families would not get the support, that is just not true, it is 1 in 10 children that are impacted by the policy. The rich don't pay a significantly higher proportion of tax than middle earners either, indeed many of the rich pay much less through clever use of tax breaks (actual tax paid rates for millionaires vary significantly with big groups paying close to 10% and others 40%).
Completely open to radically changing the tax and benefit system, but until we do, the 2 child benefit cap is going to be here to stay as electorally the middle will not support abolishing it.
Each individual part of the benefits system only benefits a minority of people, that is true, and that's why it is always easy to find support for cutting some part of it. But more than half of families get some help from the state. Of course among the top 1% there are various efforts made to avoid taxes, but overall the tax and benefit system significantly reduces incomes for the rich and increases it for the poor. For the poorest quintile taxes and benefits lead to a net increase of £14k per year. For the second quintile the net increase is £12k. For the middle quintile the net increase is £4k. For the fourth quintile it reduces their income by £5k and for the top quintile by £34k. (source: Ons Effects of taxes and benefits on UK household income: financial year ending 2022, figure 1).
The question was not shall we have a redistributive tax scheme, it was shall we change the existing redistributive tax scheme in a way that would benefit the bottom quintile, hurt the middle and not be noticed by the top quintile.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
Last time they tried a wanky rhyming couplet that had no legs was 'Maggie Thatcher Milk Snatcher'
She outlived the rhyme by 13 years.
Edstone worked because it told a truth
Dementia tax nearly saw off May. It's worth striving for these things even if successes are rare. Trump understands this - sleepy Joe etc.
I remain unconvinced May lost because of her social care policy. It was a terrible campaign for all sorts of reasons. Dementia tax successfully gave an alibi to Lynton Crosby.
The oft-forgotten factor was not one but two terrorist outrages during the 2017 election campaign, and Conservative denials that taking an axe to police numbers played any part. It was an insult to voters' intelligence, or at least their common sense.
The actual problem is that reports of potential terrorism are often indistinguishable from reports of young men acting out, or mental health issues.
Should we arrest every idiot who thinks that wearing clothing with references to Osama and ISIS? Everyone who puts "Death To The West!" on Facebook? Everyone who supports Romanian Rape Guy on Twatter?
True, although we often hear after the event that the attacker was known to MI5. I don't have the answer although it seems to me reasonable to expect the security services to spot known zealots buying bomb precursors, even if they cannot tell which nutter will make a spur of the moment decision to pick up a kitchen knife or swerve his van into a bus queue.
If we took the list of those on the Mi5 watch list, and watched them all with a rotating 24 surveillance, phone taps etc. a couple of things would happen.
1) The MI5 budget would be bigger than the NHS 2) The traffic jams from the surveliance vehicles would get out of hand. 3) The price of rusty old vans to do surveillance from would soar to the point of collapsing the handyman businesses.
Bomb precursors are not easy to notice - if you are a chemist, looking at the cleaning and chemicals section in a hardware store... it's either frightening or amusing. Depends on what you find funny.
My brother *accidentally* made explosives, during some home chemistry, when we were kids.
You'll note that the recent trend in these things is, as you say, knifes and vehicles. Which are impossible to distinguish from the background signal....
The problem is that, since radicalisation is a spiral, the early stages are the same for "edgy memes" and "bright eyed and willing to kill"
That's right, 24-hour surveillance is impractical, so we shouldn't do that. Perhaps Leon's AI could help, with computers keeping an eye on suspects' spending to flag any sudden interest in cleaning products, fireworks or warehouses.
One thing that disturbs me about the Shemima Begum affair is apparently no-one thought to keep an eye out for small groups of children buying one-way tickets to war zones.
Because before that, small groups of children travelling to war zones wasn't a problem.
After 9/11 a general was giving evidence to a Senate committee. After being harangued for a while about how unprepared they were, he pointed out the following.
1) Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russians were giving up on their bomber force. 2) After the collapse, they didn't deploy their bombers to the Northern bases that could actually reach the US. One way. 3) Given most of the bombers were propellor driven, this would mean that a plane based attack on the US would take *days* to implement. 4) If he had come to the Senate committee on 9/10 with a request for funding to mount a 24/7 air defence setup, to shoot down civilian airliners that are hijacked, he would have been locked up as a dangerous madman.
Reductio ad absurdum. Note your step 4 is not to advocate the USAF be disbanded. By the time Begum went, it was already known that British "volunteers" were pitching up on the ISIS side.
But female children weren't the problem. Young men in their 20s were.
We have become a country that isn't generous to itself, where people are so conditioned to fear losing things themselves that they refuse to extend help to others. This is not the mindset of a country that will succeed. It is the mindset of a country in a death spiral. It's the same mindset that gave us Brexit, of course. Sad.
This is the reality of today's polity. Years of right wing positioning via tabloid journalism has created a nation of people embittered and hardened. Bemoaning their lot whilst demanding policies which make their lot worse. Meanwhile the man waltzes away having taken ever more money.
BJO and his ilk demand that the opposition go All In on ending this depravity. Just tell people they will make the man pay and all will be good. Except that it won't - most voters are conditioned to favour the needs of the man having been told the man's needs are their needs (e.g. STOP THE BOATS).
The first step has to be to win power. Blair understood this, as did much of the Labour movement. The problem with Corbynism and post-Corbynism is that crankies swept in and radicalised so many in the movement (mea culpa) even if only briefly. Which is how we find ourselves here. The overton window is way over to the right, you only win by being electable within the window, hence the need to compromise a long way to move it back to the centre.
I think this is right but perhaps you are putting too much weight on Tory propaganda and not enough on innate human selfishness, which seems to have become especially prominent in this country recently. Of course people have been preached a "me first" message, but they have been very receptive to it. It's sad because they are only harming themselves, ultimately.
Oh I hear you. People ultimately ensure themselves and their own are ok. I know I do. But when it turns into active self-harm whilst claiming the self-harm is good for them, that takes time and effort.
I post repeatedly about weaponised ignorance and stupidity, not as insults but just as reality. We are all ignorant of whole piles of things. Where the right weaponise this is by creating plausible lies (e.g. "we hold all the cars") which sit in an area of our ignorance, and then repeat repeat repeat.
The result? Ignorant and stupid. I know- I've been both.
We have become a country that isn't generous to itself, where people are so conditioned to fear losing things themselves that they refuse to extend help to others. This is not the mindset of a country that will succeed. It is the mindset of a country in a death spiral. It's the same mindset that gave us Brexit, of course. Sad.
Alternatively there is a significant chunk of the population who are being asked to pay taxes to support others in having three+ kids when they do not feel they are able to afford having three+ kids themselves. Unsurprisingly they are not in favour of that.
If the tax system was more like the French one, that supports low and middle income larger families as well as those on benefits, then the views may change. Until then, it is mostly those rich enough to be able to have three+ kids themselves and those on benefits in favour, and most of the middle against.
But part of the reason that those in the middle can't afford to have three children is because of the lack of government support. The reality is that most families would get the support and only the rich are net contributors. They're cutting off their nose to spite their face. Partly this is a result of Tory divide and rule messaging, which sets up middle England against a largely illusory underclass of feckless breeders to persuade those on middle incomes to vote against their own interests. But it is also the result of a defeatist mentality as a country, where we are all simply trying to hold on to what we have rather than making sacrifices for our future common prosperity. Same with private schools incidentally. We are setting ourselves up for national decline, and it is desperately sad.
It is to do with tax and rational self interest, not defeatist mentalities or illusions. Most families would not get the support, that is just not true, it is 1 in 10 children that are impacted by the policy. The rich don't pay a significantly higher proportion of tax than middle earners either, indeed many of the rich pay much less through clever use of tax breaks (actual tax paid rates for millionaires vary significantly with big groups paying close to 10% and others 40%).
Completely open to radically changing the tax and benefit system, but until we do, the 2 child benefit cap is going to be here to stay as electorally the middle will not support abolishing it.
Each individual part of the benefits system only benefits a minority of people, that is true, and that's why it is always easy to find support for cutting some part of it. But more than half of families get some help from the state. Of course among the top 1% there are various efforts made to avoid taxes, but overall the tax and benefit system significantly reduces incomes for the rich and increases it for the poor. For the poorest quintile taxes and benefits lead to a net increase of £14k per year. For the second quintile the net increase is £12k. For the middle quintile the net increase is £4k. For the fourth quintile it reduces their income by £5k and for the top quintile by £34k. (source: Ons Effects of taxes and benefits on UK household income: financial year ending 2022, figure 1).
The question was not shall we have a redistributive tax scheme, it was shall we change the existing redistributive tax scheme in a way that would benefit the bottom quintile, hurt the middle and not be noticed by the top quintile.
I would guess it would benefit the bottom two quintiles, have no effect net on the middle quintile and hurt the top two quintiles because it is only the top two quintiles who ultimately pay in to the system net. But I haven't seen detailed modeling on it.
We have become a country that isn't generous to itself, where people are so conditioned to fear losing things themselves that they refuse to extend help to others. This is not the mindset of a country that will succeed. It is the mindset of a country in a death spiral. It's the same mindset that gave us Brexit, of course. Sad.
Alternatively there is a significant chunk of the population who are being asked to pay taxes to support others in having three+ kids when they do not feel they are able to afford having three+ kids themselves. Unsurprisingly they are not in favour of that.
If the tax system was more like the French one, that supports low and middle income larger families as well as those on benefits, then the views may change. Until then, it is mostly those rich enough to be able to have three+ kids themselves and those on benefits in favour, and most of the middle against.
But part of the reason that those in the middle can't afford to have three children is because of the lack of government support. The reality is that most families would get the support and only the rich are net contributors. They're cutting off their nose to spite their face. Partly this is a result of Tory divide and rule messaging, which sets up middle England against a largely illusory underclass of feckless breeders to persuade those on middle incomes to vote against their own interests. But it is also the result of a defeatist mentality as a country, where we are all simply trying to hold on to what we have rather than making sacrifices for our future common prosperity. Same with private schools incidentally. We are setting ourselves up for national decline, and it is desperately sad.
It is to do with tax and rational self interest, not defeatist mentalities or illusions. Most families would not get the support, that is just not true, it is 1 in 10 children that are impacted by the policy. The rich don't pay a significantly higher proportion of tax than middle earners either, indeed many of the rich pay much less through clever use of tax breaks (actual tax paid rates for millionaires vary significantly with big groups paying close to 10% and others 40%).
Completely open to radically changing the tax and benefit system, but until we do, the 2 child benefit cap is going to be here to stay as electorally the middle will not support abolishing it.
Each individual part of the benefits system only benefits a minority of people, that is true, and that's why it is always easy to find support for cutting some part of it. But more than half of families get some help from the state. Of course among the top 1% there are various efforts made to avoid taxes, but overall the tax and benefit system significantly reduces incomes for the rich and increases it for the poor. For the poorest quintile taxes and benefits lead to a net increase of £14k per year. For the second quintile the net increase is £12k. For the middle quintile the net increase is £4k. For the fourth quintile it reduces their income by £5k and for the top quintile by £34k. (source: Ons Effects of taxes and benefits on UK household income: financial year ending 2022, figure 1).
The question was not shall we have a redistributive tax scheme, it was shall we change the existing redistributive tax scheme in a way that would benefit the bottom quintile, hurt the middle and not be noticed by the top quintile.
I would guess it would benefit the bottom two quintiles, have no effect net on the middle quintile and hurt the top two quintiles because it is only the top two quintiles who ultimately pay in to the system net. But I haven't seen detailed modeling on it.
I fail to understand how a policy that increases general taxation and pays it out solely to the bottom quintile has no net effect on the middle quintile? Somehow magically all the additional tax is coming from the top?
The marginal tax increase required has nothing to do with how the existing tax is raised and spent.
We have become a country that isn't generous to itself, where people are so conditioned to fear losing things themselves that they refuse to extend help to others. This is not the mindset of a country that will succeed. It is the mindset of a country in a death spiral. It's the same mindset that gave us Brexit, of course. Sad.
This is the reality of today's polity. Years of right wing positioning via tabloid journalism has created a nation of people embittered and hardened. Bemoaning their lot whilst demanding policies which make their lot worse. Meanwhile the man waltzes away having taken ever more money.
BJO and his ilk demand that the opposition go All In on ending this depravity. Just tell people they will make the man pay and all will be good. Except that it won't - most voters are conditioned to favour the needs of the man having been told the man's needs are their needs (e.g. STOP THE BOATS).
The first step has to be to win power. Blair understood this, as did much of the Labour movement. The problem with Corbynism and post-Corbynism is that crankies swept in and radicalised so many in the movement (mea culpa) even if only briefly. Which is how we find ourselves here. The overton window is way over to the right, you only win by being electable within the window, hence the need to compromise a long way to move it back to the centre.
I think this is right but perhaps you are putting too much weight on Tory propaganda and not enough on innate human selfishness, which seems to have become especially prominent in this country recently. Of course people have been preached a "me first" message, but they have been very receptive to it. It's sad because they are only harming themselves, ultimately.
Oh I hear you. People ultimately ensure themselves and their own are ok. I know I do. But when it turns into active self-harm whilst claiming the self-harm is good for them, that takes time and effort.
I post repeatedly about weaponised ignorance and stupidity, not as insults but just as reality. We are all ignorant of whole piles of things. Where the right weaponise this is by creating plausible lies (e.g. "we hold all the cars") which sit in an area of our ignorance, and then repeat repeat repeat.
The result? Ignorant and stupid. I know- I've been both.
The two-child benefit limit plays to the traditional rightwing notion that the poor breed like rabbits. Starmer is just Ramsay MacBlair-Face redux. He doesn't deserve to be called "Keir". Labour won't get my vote so long as he's leader.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
The Tories have rigged the Mayoral race by changing the electoral system and still managed to lose.
Thanks for that Trumpian intervention. Accusing your opponents of "rigging" something damages democracy far more than any perceived tinkering at the edges, even if it might be perceived as having been done for the wrong reasons. Claiming that moving the mayoral system to the same system as we have at the GE (and Labour will no doubt benefit from again soon) is "rigging" is partisan hyperbolic nonsense of the worst kind.
Please stop being like Trump, it doesn't suit you.
We have become a country that isn't generous to itself, where people are so conditioned to fear losing things themselves that they refuse to extend help to others. This is not the mindset of a country that will succeed. It is the mindset of a country in a death spiral. It's the same mindset that gave us Brexit, of course. Sad.
This is the reality of today's polity. Years of right wing positioning via tabloid journalism has created a nation of people embittered and hardened. Bemoaning their lot whilst demanding policies which make their lot worse. Meanwhile the man waltzes away having taken ever more money.
BJO and his ilk demand that the opposition go All In on ending this depravity. Just tell people they will make the man pay and all will be good. Except that it won't - most voters are conditioned to favour the needs of the man having been told the man's needs are their needs (e.g. STOP THE BOATS).
The first step has to be to win power. Blair understood this, as did much of the Labour movement. The problem with Corbynism and post-Corbynism is that crankies swept in and radicalised so many in the movement (mea culpa) even if only briefly. Which is how we find ourselves here. The overton window is way over to the right, you only win by being electable within the window, hence the need to compromise a long way to move it back to the centre.
Plus, the great stagnation in the UK since 2008 or so has meant that "there is no money, so your only hope is a zero-sum grab from someone else" is a superfically rational way of looking at the world. 2016 was partly a vote for that; Vote Leave to guard the gates was a much more powerful message than Vote Leave to go out into the world. (Global-minded leavers are another of those groups who were tactically smart but strategically dumb).
What that worldview misses is that it ought to be possible to grow the economy and benefit from those fruits. But instead of sowing the seeds so we can harvest their crops in the near future, we are in a mindset that we might as well eat them now. Flipping that mindset looks like needing some principled dishonesty and a decent slice of luck.
I don't totally agree with this, but it makes the point that we're in a pickle;
My claim is that the UK is now a lot more like Poland than it is like the United States in terms of the kinds of growth it needs to do – driven by improved use of existing technology and inputs, and accumulation of capital, rather than driven primarily by technological advancement. With the exception of a few sectors like AI, we are so far behind the frontier in terms of economic development that worrying about technological progress doesn’t make much sense, and at worst is a serious distraction.
There is a deeper point here.
What the UK is pretty fair at *is* technological progress . Something come out of a lab - announced in the papers etc.
What we are poor at is the unacknowledged gap after that. Between the lab and the consumer.
People were talking in a previous thread about various tech billionaires and their effect on the technological landscape.
What Elon was right about, in a couple of instances, is that the gap between the demo and a product you sell is big and needs effort to bridge.
Hence actually getting a 4 second EV to market and creating the supercharger network. The initial car was the productionisation of the custom work that a couple of car mod outfits in LA were doing.
An EV needs batteries - so you need to build factories measured by the square km. Hoping that they will just turn up isn't going to work.
Or actually building a cheaper rocket. Lots of people had all kinds of ideas and schemes for that. But you need to actually turn that into aluminium, steel and niobium.
I've long held the view that the British so-called constitution (which only mental contortionists who've obediently pre-decided it's a constitution think actually is one) is made up as they go along. This current example seems grist to my mill. Did any of the three MPs actually take the Chiltern Hundreds or Manor of Northstead? No?
Yes.
12 June 2023: "The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed Nigel Adams to be Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead." 12 June 2023: "The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson to be Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern." 19 June 2023: "The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed the Honourable David John Warburton to be Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead."
We have become a country that isn't generous to itself, where people are so conditioned to fear losing things themselves that they refuse to extend help to others. This is not the mindset of a country that will succeed. It is the mindset of a country in a death spiral. It's the same mindset that gave us Brexit, of course. Sad.
This is the reality of today's polity. Years of right wing positioning via tabloid journalism has created a nation of people embittered and hardened. Bemoaning their lot whilst demanding policies which make their lot worse. Meanwhile the man waltzes away having taken ever more money.
BJO and his ilk demand that the opposition go All In on ending this depravity. Just tell people they will make the man pay and all will be good. Except that it won't - most voters are conditioned to favour the needs of the man having been told the man's needs are their needs (e.g. STOP THE BOATS).
The first step has to be to win power. Blair understood this, as did much of the Labour movement. The problem with Corbynism and post-Corbynism is that crankies swept in and radicalised so many in the movement (mea culpa) even if only briefly. Which is how we find ourselves here. The overton window is way over to the right, you only win by being electable within the window, hence the need to compromise a long way to move it back to the centre.
Plus, the great stagnation in the UK since 2008 or so has meant that "there is no money, so your only hope is a zero-sum grab from someone else" is a superfically rational way of looking at the world. 2016 was partly a vote for that; Vote Leave to guard the gates was a much more powerful message than Vote Leave to go out into the world. (Global-minded leavers are another of those groups who were tactically smart but strategically dumb).
What that worldview misses is that it ought to be possible to grow the economy and benefit from those fruits. But instead of sowing the seeds so we can harvest their crops in the near future, we are in a mindset that we might as well eat them now. Flipping that mindset looks like needing some principled dishonesty and a decent slice of luck.
I don't totally agree with this, but it makes the point that we're in a pickle;
My claim is that the UK is now a lot more like Poland than it is like the United States in terms of the kinds of growth it needs to do – driven by improved use of existing technology and inputs, and accumulation of capital, rather than driven primarily by technological advancement. With the exception of a few sectors like AI, we are so far behind the frontier in terms of economic development that worrying about technological progress doesn’t make much sense, and at worst is a serious distraction.
A great piece, and holds a mirror up to the obvious reality that nobody wants to address - the UK economy is structurally broken. We can't fund the basics - which themselves are spiralling away in terms of affordability - because despite record spending there is less and less cash left at the point of delivery.
Where is all the money going? Extracted by the spivs who have gamed the system.
This is why I keep advocating the StateCo model which is so successful elsewhere in western Europe. State / Regional ownership of commercial business. How do we build homes without mega objections and unaffordable prices? Have the community itself own the company building and then owning them. Same with energy. Transport. The list goes on.
And because they are commercial businesses some will do better than others. And spread out into other areas both business and geographic.
Which is how we can sit on a bus run by a French StateCo, whilst paying out energy bill to a different French-owned StateCo. And ordering products online for delivery by yet another French-owned StateCo.
And whilst we do so? Because we've been made Stupid and Ignorant by the right wing media, we then put down our phone and say "state ownership doesn't work, I don't trust Labour because they want to nationalise things."
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
We have become a country that isn't generous to itself, where people are so conditioned to fear losing things themselves that they refuse to extend help to others. This is not the mindset of a country that will succeed. It is the mindset of a country in a death spiral. It's the same mindset that gave us Brexit, of course. Sad.
This is the reality of today's polity. Years of right wing positioning via tabloid journalism has created a nation of people embittered and hardened. Bemoaning their lot whilst demanding policies which make their lot worse. Meanwhile the man waltzes away having taken ever more money.
BJO and his ilk demand that the opposition go All In on ending this depravity. Just tell people they will make the man pay and all will be good. Except that it won't - most voters are conditioned to favour the needs of the man having been told the man's needs are their needs (e.g. STOP THE BOATS).
The first step has to be to win power. Blair understood this, as did much of the Labour movement. The problem with Corbynism and post-Corbynism is that crankies swept in and radicalised so many in the movement (mea culpa) even if only briefly. Which is how we find ourselves here. The overton window is way over to the right, you only win by being electable within the window, hence the need to compromise a long way to move it back to the centre.
I think this is right but perhaps you are putting too much weight on Tory propaganda and not enough on innate human selfishness, which seems to have become especially prominent in this country recently. Of course people have been preached a "me first" message, but they have been very receptive to it. It's sad because they are only harming themselves, ultimately.
Oh I hear you. People ultimately ensure themselves and their own are ok. I know I do. But when it turns into active self-harm whilst claiming the self-harm is good for them, that takes time and effort.
I post repeatedly about weaponised ignorance and stupidity, not as insults but just as reality. We are all ignorant of whole piles of things. Where the right weaponise this is by creating plausible lies (e.g. "we hold all the cars") which sit in an area of our ignorance, and then repeat repeat repeat.
The result? Ignorant and stupid. I know- I've been both.
The two-child benefit limit plays to the traditional rightwing notion that the poor breed like rabbits. Starmer is just Ramsay MacBlair-Face redux. He doesn't deserve to be called "Keir". Labour won't get my vote so long as he's leader.
He doesn't get my vote because I want a Labour government, and voting Labour would ensure continuation of the Tory MP.
But why won't he get yours? Do you think there is a magic wand he can wave on day 1 to fix every issue? He has set out 5 missions, one of which is "break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage".
Keeping the 2 child policy is incompatible with that mission, so it will go. Just not immediately because saying "this is our lead priority" means other stuff gets pushed aside. And hands the Tories a stick to beat him with.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Not sure drawing equivalency between menstruation and the right for men to pay for sex is helping your argument here.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
What is the Met's new slogan? "Abstain or rape" would have obvious drawbacks. Are there any other perfectly legal activities the Met should ban? Scrapping their old cars, for instance, as scrap metal was often a front for armed robbers, or having their hair cut, since barbers might be a front for money-laundering?
My guess is this policy will be welcomed only by those who want prostitution outlawed anyway.
Indeed. Awkward subject, but there are still many who have an illiberal belief that any kind of sex that is outside their particular morality or point of reference should be legally restricted (see the recent bruhaha over Schofield and Edwards which was really about homophobia). There are obviously huge criminality aspects to prostitution which cause concern. There are those like Cyclefree who will refer to it as "men thinking they can buy women" which is a moral position rather than a rational one because there is a quite large number of men who offer themselves for sex and the titillation (stripping etc.) of both men and women. I suspect that those who are not coerced into it by criminals see it as a way of earning money and their right to do so, and it is not the state's place to judge them or criminalise them. Their right to sell their services (and their bodies if you want to see it that way) as they see fit, and do not want their clients to be criminalised either. That is the liberal position.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
Thanks. The added requirement to register each new romantic partner sounds like a blackmailers charter.
This is getting pretty puritanical and a little silly. We can't even use the word sex partners so use romantic partners instead, when clearly the intent is to cover any sexual relationship, not all of which are romantic.
By all means make them declare such relationships with colleagues or people they have been involved with through work, ban them from relationships in their reporting line and members of the public involved in a current investigation, but asking them to declare every sexual partner is way over the top.
And human nature pretty much guarantees such a policy wont be followed.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
On what planet does paying for sex equate to menstruation? Are you suggesting men are equally unable to refrain from using prostitutes in the same way women can’t refrain from menstruating?
What section of the Equality Act is potentially being breached here? I’ve got a call on the EqA with some other employment lawyers this morning and I’ve no doubt this …erm…refreshing take will make all the others take notice.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
Thanks. The added requirement to register each new romantic partner sounds like a blackmailers charter.
What does "pay" mean in "pay for sex"? And what does "romantic partner" mean? Is it okay if they pull each other off at the station? What if the "partner" gives them a false name? Or do they have to check ID? Or perhaps the kind of saddo who finds a cop attractive is always ready to show her ID anyway?
Quite funny to imagine the cops squirming over this.
Rather than visit prostitutes, abstain, or rape, they could try the fourth alternative of actually acquiring rounded personalities and finding partners on that basis.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
Thanks. The added requirement to register each new romantic partner sounds like a blackmailers charter.
What does "pay" mean in "pay for sex"? And what does "romantic partner" mean? Is it okay if they pull each other off at the station? What if the "partner" gives them a false name? Or do they have to check ID? Or perhaps the kind of saddo who finds a cop attractive is always ready to show their ID anyway?
Quite funny to imagine the cops squirming over this.
Rather than visit prostitutes, abstain, or rape, they could try the fourth alternative of actually acquiring rounded personalities and finding partners on that basis.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
"declaring romantic relationships" is most likely very challengeable.
Under what legal provision?
Equality Act. What if I am a serving police officer and I have a gay relationship with married male officer of equal rank? Why should I be forced to reveal this very personal relationship? I would also guess (you tell me if you are a lawyer) Article 8? I should not need to reveal my personal relationships as they are private. I would also think that such retrospective requirements might also infringe the officer's employment contract.
Please shoot me down if I am wrong. I am genuinely interested.
We have become a country that isn't generous to itself, where people are so conditioned to fear losing things themselves that they refuse to extend help to others. This is not the mindset of a country that will succeed. It is the mindset of a country in a death spiral. It's the same mindset that gave us Brexit, of course. Sad.
This is the reality of today's polity. Years of right wing positioning via tabloid journalism has created a nation of people embittered and hardened. Bemoaning their lot whilst demanding policies which make their lot worse. Meanwhile the man waltzes away having taken ever more money.
BJO and his ilk demand that the opposition go All In on ending this depravity. Just tell people they will make the man pay and all will be good. Except that it won't - most voters are conditioned to favour the needs of the man having been told the man's needs are their needs (e.g. STOP THE BOATS).
The first step has to be to win power. Blair understood this, as did much of the Labour movement. The problem with Corbynism and post-Corbynism is that crankies swept in and radicalised so many in the movement (mea culpa) even if only briefly. Which is how we find ourselves here. The overton window is way over to the right, you only win by being electable within the window, hence the need to compromise a long way to move it back to the centre.
Plus, the great stagnation in the UK since 2008 or so has meant that "there is no money, so your only hope is a zero-sum grab from someone else" is a superfically rational way of looking at the world. 2016 was partly a vote for that; Vote Leave to guard the gates was a much more powerful message than Vote Leave to go out into the world. (Global-minded leavers are another of those groups who were tactically smart but strategically dumb).
What that worldview misses is that it ought to be possible to grow the economy and benefit from those fruits. But instead of sowing the seeds so we can harvest their crops in the near future, we are in a mindset that we might as well eat them now. Flipping that mindset looks like needing some principled dishonesty and a decent slice of luck.
I don't totally agree with this, but it makes the point that we're in a pickle;
My claim is that the UK is now a lot more like Poland than it is like the United States in terms of the kinds of growth it needs to do – driven by improved use of existing technology and inputs, and accumulation of capital, rather than driven primarily by technological advancement. With the exception of a few sectors like AI, we are so far behind the frontier in terms of economic development that worrying about technological progress doesn’t make much sense, and at worst is a serious distraction.
There is a deeper point here.
What the UK is pretty fair at *is* technological progress . Something come out of a lab - announced in the papers etc.
What we are poor at is the unacknowledged gap after that. Between the lab and the consumer.
People were talking in a previous thread about various tech billionaires and their effect on the technological landscape.
What Elon was right about, in a couple of instances, is that the gap between the demo and a product you sell is big and needs effort to bridge.
Hence actually getting a 4 second EV to market and creating the supercharger network. The initial car was the productionisation of the custom work that a couple of car mod outfits in LA were doing.
An EV needs batteries - so you need to build factories measured by the square km. Hoping that they will just turn up isn't going to work.
Or actually building a cheaper rocket. Lots of people had all kinds of ideas and schemes for that. But you need to actually turn that into aluminium, steel and niobium.
There's some truth in that - but equally in large sectors of the modern economy (chip manufacturing; telecoms; power electronics) we have very little industrial base.
The new battery factory to be built in Somerset at least means that industry won't disappear. It's not enough on its own - but it's planned to be around four times the size of the Nissan plant.
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
"Giving money to others" - ha. Why should the state not provide a safety net that treats all children equally? Why penalise children into poverty for having the wrong ordinal number?
Tories have always got off on working class child poverty.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
Thanks. The added requirement to register each new romantic partner sounds like a blackmailers charter.
What does "pay" mean in "pay for sex"? And what does "romantic partner" mean? Is it okay if they pull each other off at the station? What if the "partner" gives them a false name? Or do they have to check ID? Or perhaps the kind of saddo who finds a cop attractive is always ready to show their ID anyway?
Quite funny to imagine the cops squirming over this.
More seriously, suppose one of the partners is married, or has a family that is strictly religious, or is the wrong gender. The possibilities for blackmail are endless.
And as you say, it also seems impractical. Look love, we've got on so well that normally I'd ask you back to my place but can it wait a week so I can fill in police form XX2B in triplicate? Steve is your real name, right? V or ph?
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
I was about to "like" that Richard until I saw the bollocks at the end about "remainers". I am a remainer ( a right of centre one) and agree with everything else you wrote above. Not everything is about Brexit.
We have become a country that isn't generous to itself, where people are so conditioned to fear losing things themselves that they refuse to extend help to others. This is not the mindset of a country that will succeed. It is the mindset of a country in a death spiral. It's the same mindset that gave us Brexit, of course. Sad.
This is the reality of today's polity. Years of right wing positioning via tabloid journalism has created a nation of people embittered and hardened. Bemoaning their lot whilst demanding policies which make their lot worse. Meanwhile the man waltzes away having taken ever more money.
BJO and his ilk demand that the opposition go All In on ending this depravity. Just tell people they will make the man pay and all will be good. Except that it won't - most voters are conditioned to favour the needs of the man having been told the man's needs are their needs (e.g. STOP THE BOATS).
The first step has to be to win power. Blair understood this, as did much of the Labour movement. The problem with Corbynism and post-Corbynism is that crankies swept in and radicalised so many in the movement (mea culpa) even if only briefly. Which is how we find ourselves here. The overton window is way over to the right, you only win by being electable within the window, hence the need to compromise a long way to move it back to the centre.
Plus, the great stagnation in the UK since 2008 or so has meant that "there is no money, so your only hope is a zero-sum grab from someone else" is a superfically rational way of looking at the world. 2016 was partly a vote for that; Vote Leave to guard the gates was a much more powerful message than Vote Leave to go out into the world. (Global-minded leavers are another of those groups who were tactically smart but strategically dumb).
What that worldview misses is that it ought to be possible to grow the economy and benefit from those fruits. But instead of sowing the seeds so we can harvest their crops in the near future, we are in a mindset that we might as well eat them now. Flipping that mindset looks like needing some principled dishonesty and a decent slice of luck.
I don't totally agree with this, but it makes the point that we're in a pickle;
My claim is that the UK is now a lot more like Poland than it is like the United States in terms of the kinds of growth it needs to do – driven by improved use of existing technology and inputs, and accumulation of capital, rather than driven primarily by technological advancement. With the exception of a few sectors like AI, we are so far behind the frontier in terms of economic development that worrying about technological progress doesn’t make much sense, and at worst is a serious distraction.
There is a deeper point here.
What the UK is pretty fair at *is* technological progress . Something come out of a lab - announced in the papers etc.
What we are poor at is the unacknowledged gap after that. Between the lab and the consumer.
People were talking in a previous thread about various tech billionaires and their effect on the technological landscape.
What Elon was right about, in a couple of instances, is that the gap between the demo and a product you sell is big and needs effort to bridge.
Hence actually getting a 4 second EV to market and creating the supercharger network. The initial car was the productionisation of the custom work that a couple of car mod outfits in LA were doing.
An EV needs batteries - so you need to build factories measured by the square km. Hoping that they will just turn up isn't going to work.
Or actually building a cheaper rocket. Lots of people had all kinds of ideas and schemes for that. But you need to actually turn that into aluminium, steel and niobium.
There's some truth in that - but equally in large sectors of the modern economy (chip manufacturing; telecoms; power electronics) we have very little industrial base.
The new battery factory to be built in Somerset at least means that industry won't disappear. It's not enough on its own - but it's planned to be around four times the size of the Nissan plant.
The industrial base is a side effect actually getting ideas from "demo" to "consumer".
That's where the original industrial base came from - fucktons of ideas being made into actual products.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
What is the Met's new slogan? "Abstain or rape" would have obvious drawbacks. Are there any other perfectly legal activities the Met should ban? Scrapping their old cars, for instance, as scrap metal was often a front for armed robbers, or having their hair cut, since barbers might be a front for money-laundering?
My guess is this policy will be welcomed only by those who want prostitution outlawed anyway.
Indeed. Awkward subject, but there are still many who have an illiberal belief that any kind of sex that is outside their particular morality or point of reference should be legally restricted (see the recent bruhaha over Schofield and Edwards which was really about homophobia). There are obviously huge criminality aspects to prostitution which cause concern. There are those like Cyclefree who will refer to it as "men thinking they can buy women" which is a moral position rather than a rational one because there is a quite large number of men who offer themselves for sex and the titillation (stripping etc.) of both men and women. I suspect that those who are not coerced into it by criminals see it as a way of earning money and their right to do so, and it is not the state's place to judge them or criminalise them. Their right to sell their services (and their bodies if you want to see it that way) as they see fit, and do not want their clients to be criminalised either. That is the liberal position.
I don't know where I stand on this, but I was very surprised recently to learn that a number of convicted criminals are serving police officers (in the Met and elsewhere), so I'd be tempted to crack down on that before behaviours that are iffy but legal.
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
Excellent post. For those who think there should be an incentive for 3, what about 4?
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
Excellent post. For those who think there should be an incentive for 3, what about 4?
5 ...
I'd reduce it to one, for environmental reasons.
If you collapse the population like that, the working age vs retired pyramid will fuck the welfare state.
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
Excellent post. For those who think there should be an incentive for 3, what about 4?
5 ...
I'd reduce it to one, for environmental reasons.
If you collapse the population like that, the working age vs retired pyramid will fuck the welfare state.
That's a human concern. I'm talking about the environment. (I do hope that those who want incentives to reward a large number of children don't dare to identify themselves as environmentalists.)
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
I was about to "like" that Richard until I saw the bollocks at the end about "remainers". I am a remainer ( a right of centre one) and agree with everything else you wrote above. Not everything is about Brexit.
My thoughts exactly! (though I’m definitely a leftie)
But the more substantive point is right imo; to add a bit more, even if you disagree with the cap (I do) you might come to a conclusion that, when finances are tight, it is a less bad way to save money than other things. I also disagree with this but can respect those who make such a trade off. It doesn’t make anyone any more selfish than eg being happy to buy a takeaway coffee rather than giving the £3 or so to an anti-malaria charity. We are all hypocrites in our own ways.
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
I was about to "like" that Richard until I saw the bollocks at the end about "remainers". I am a remainer ( a right of centre one) and agree with everything else you wrote above. Not everything is about Brexit.
I added that specifically because several posters commenting on this subject have referenced Brexit in the discussion this morning and said it is another symptom of the same 'selfish' ideology. I didn't introduce Brexit to the discussion, I am simply responding to their posts linking the two subjects. If you have an argument with anyone go and have it with your fellow remain voters.
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
"Giving money to others" - ha. Why should the state not provide a safety net that treats all children equally? Why penalise children into poverty for having the wrong ordinal number?
Tories have always got off on working class child poverty.
In case you missed it I agree with you - and disagree with the limit. As I said very clearly in the posting. I was explaining why voters feel this way, not why the individual parties (none of whom I support) are using it as a weapon.
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
I was about to "like" that Richard until I saw the bollocks at the end about "remainers". I am a remainer ( a right of centre one) and agree with everything else you wrote above. Not everything is about Brexit.
I added that specifically because several posters commenting on this subject have referenced Brexit in the discussion this morning and said it is another symptom of the same 'selfish' ideology. I didn't introduce Brexit to the discussion, I am simply responding to their posts linking the two subjects. If you have an argument with anyone go and have it with your fellow remain voters.
I am quite sure there are a lot of remain voters that I have little in common with and therefore they are unlikely to listen, in the same way that you do not (praise the Lord) agree with many of views of a contingent of those that voted Leave
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
I was about to "like" that Richard until I saw the bollocks at the end about "remainers". I am a remainer ( a right of centre one) and agree with everything else you wrote above. Not everything is about Brexit.
I added that specifically because several posters commenting on this subject have referenced Brexit in the discussion this morning and said it is another symptom of the same 'selfish' ideology. I didn't introduce Brexit to the discussion, I am simply responding to their posts linking the two subjects. If you have an argument with anyone go and have it with your fellow remain voters.
I am quite sure there are a lot of remain voters that I have little in common with and therefore they are unlikely to listen, in the same way that you do not (praise the Lord) agree with many of views of a contingent of those that voted Leave
Agreed and again it was not directed specifically at you. But it was a direct reference to comments made this morning on here by those trying to link the two subjects so I don't apologise for including it in my response.
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
Excellent post. For those who think there should be an incentive for 3, what about 4?
5 ...
I'd reduce it to one, for environmental reasons.
If you collapse the population like that, the working age vs retired pyramid will fuck the welfare state.
That's a human concern. I'm talking about the environment. (I do hope that those who want incentives to reward a large number of children don't dare to identify themselves as environmentalists.)
That's one issue where I tend to agree with Gilbert and George: "F*ck the Planet."
We have become a country that isn't generous to itself, where people are so conditioned to fear losing things themselves that they refuse to extend help to others. This is not the mindset of a country that will succeed. It is the mindset of a country in a death spiral. It's the same mindset that gave us Brexit, of course. Sad.
This is the reality of today's polity. Years of right wing positioning via tabloid journalism has created a nation of people embittered and hardened. Bemoaning their lot whilst demanding policies which make their lot worse. Meanwhile the man waltzes away having taken ever more money.
BJO and his ilk demand that the opposition go All In on ending this depravity. Just tell people they will make the man pay and all will be good. Except that it won't - most voters are conditioned to favour the needs of the man having been told the man's needs are their needs (e.g. STOP THE BOATS).
The first step has to be to win power. Blair understood this, as did much of the Labour movement. The problem with Corbynism and post-Corbynism is that crankies swept in and radicalised so many in the movement (mea culpa) even if only briefly. Which is how we find ourselves here. The overton window is way over to the right, you only win by being electable within the window, hence the need to compromise a long way to move it back to the centre.
Plus, the great stagnation in the UK since 2008 or so has meant that "there is no money, so your only hope is a zero-sum grab from someone else" is a superfically rational way of looking at the world. 2016 was partly a vote for that; Vote Leave to guard the gates was a much more powerful message than Vote Leave to go out into the world. (Global-minded leavers are another of those groups who were tactically smart but strategically dumb).
What that worldview misses is that it ought to be possible to grow the economy and benefit from those fruits. But instead of sowing the seeds so we can harvest their crops in the near future, we are in a mindset that we might as well eat them now. Flipping that mindset looks like needing some principled dishonesty and a decent slice of luck.
I don't totally agree with this, but it makes the point that we're in a pickle;
My claim is that the UK is now a lot more like Poland than it is like the United States in terms of the kinds of growth it needs to do – driven by improved use of existing technology and inputs, and accumulation of capital, rather than driven primarily by technological advancement. With the exception of a few sectors like AI, we are so far behind the frontier in terms of economic development that worrying about technological progress doesn’t make much sense, and at worst is a serious distraction.
A great piece, and holds a mirror up to the obvious reality that nobody wants to address - the UK economy is structurally broken. We can't fund the basics - which themselves are spiralling away in terms of affordability - because despite record spending there is less and less cash left at the point of delivery.
Where is all the money going? Extracted by the spivs who have gamed the system.
This is why I keep advocating the StateCo model which is so successful elsewhere in western Europe. State / Regional ownership of commercial business. How do we build homes without mega objections and unaffordable prices? Have the community itself own the company building and then owning them. Same with energy. Transport. The list goes on.
And because they are commercial businesses some will do better than others. And spread out into other areas both business and geographic.
Which is how we can sit on a bus run by a French StateCo, whilst paying out energy bill to a different French-owned StateCo. And ordering products online for delivery by yet another French-owned StateCo.
And whilst we do so? Because we've been made Stupid and Ignorant by the right wing media, we then put down our phone and say "state ownership doesn't work, I don't trust Labour because they want to nationalise things."
There's a distinction between regional and state ownership that plan doesn't really explore. Labour's housing policy is a good example of the former - but does local government have the capacity to do much more than that over the course of a single electoral cycle ?
Any such transformation of the economy would necessarily be a longer term project - and the required a political consensus which I'm not entirely sure exists.
The next government needs to be deeply pragmatic in how it advances - and entrenches - any such plan. Or it will just get reversed.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
Excellent post. For those who think there should be an incentive for 3, what about 4?
5 ...
I'd reduce it to one, for environmental reasons.
If you collapse the population like that, the working age vs retired pyramid will fuck the welfare state.
That's a human concern. I'm talking about the environment. (I do hope that those who want incentives to reward a large number of children don't dare to identify themselves as environmentalists.)
Without immigration, the population would start to shrink in fairly short order. We are below replacement in the U.K.
So the simplest mechanism is zero immigration. Vote Reform, go Green?
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
Thanks. The added requirement to register each new romantic partner sounds like a blackmailers charter.
What does "pay" mean in "pay for sex"? And what does "romantic partner" mean? Is it okay if they pull each other off at the station? What if the "partner" gives them a false name? Or do they have to check ID? Or perhaps the kind of saddo who finds a cop attractive is always ready to show her ID anyway?
Quite funny to imagine the cops squirming over this.
Rather than visit prostitutes, abstain, or rape, they could try the fourth alternative of actually acquiring rounded personalities and finding partners on that basis.
Your final paragraph is a bit like the German decision (alleged by Beevor, anyway) not to destroy stocks of drink as they withdrew before the Red Army in 1945 because all that alcohol would make the Russians all kind and loving and much less murederous and rapey. 10/10 for faith in human nature and 0/10 for realism.
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
Excellent post. For those who think there should be an incentive for 3, what about 4?
5 ...
I'd reduce it to one, for environmental reasons.
If you collapse the population like that, the working age vs retired pyramid will fuck the welfare state.
That's a human concern. I'm talking about the environment. (I do hope that those who want incentives to reward a large number of children don't dare to identify themselves as environmentalists.)
Without immigration, the population would start to shrink in fairly short order. We are below replacement in the U.K.
So the simplest mechanism is zero immigration. Vote Reform, go Green?
Demographic and environmental concerns so far as population go are diametrically opposed.
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
Excellent post. For those who think there should be an incentive for 3, what about 4?
5 ...
I'd reduce it to one, for environmental reasons.
If you collapse the population like that, the working age vs retired pyramid will fuck the welfare state.
That's a human concern. I'm talking about the environment. (I do hope that those who want incentives to reward a large number of children don't dare to identify themselves as environmentalists.)
Without immigration, the population would start to shrink in fairly short order. We are below replacement in the U.K.
So the simplest mechanism is zero immigration. Vote Reform, go Green?
Surely the exact opposite. Since those migrants are already in the world the most environmentally friendly way to proceed would be to ban people having kids in the UK and have lots of immigration. No net increase in world population but maintaining a steady UK population.
Of course I am not serious but there is a certain weird logic to such an argument if that is the route people are going along.
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
Excellent post. For those who think there should be an incentive for 3, what about 4?
5 ...
I'd reduce it to one, for environmental reasons.
If you collapse the population like that, the working age vs retired pyramid will fuck the welfare state.
That's a human concern. I'm talking about the environment. (I do hope that those who want incentives to reward a large number of children don't dare to identify themselves as environmentalists.)
That's one issue where I tend to agree with Gilbert and George: "F*ck the Planet."
Well that's exactly what we are doing. At least you are honest.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
I find it amusing to see all the lefties on here this morning taking one bit of news they disapprove of - Starmer's decision to retain the two child limit on benefits - and using it to build a completely fictional narrative about the state of the nation and the moral and societal degeneration of its peoples.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
Excellent post. For those who think there should be an incentive for 3, what about 4?
5 ...
I'd reduce it to one, for environmental reasons.
If you collapse the population like that, the working age vs retired pyramid will fuck the welfare state.
That's a human concern. I'm talking about the environment. (I do hope that those who want incentives to reward a large number of children don't dare to identify themselves as environmentalists.)
What exactly about the environment do you care about?
I mean life on earth, which is the only life we know about in the universe, will probably be wiped out at the latest in a few billion years when the sun explodes, possibly much sooner if a big enough space rock heads our way. Maybe human civilisation is the best chance for life to survive these things.
We have become a country that isn't generous to itself, where people are so conditioned to fear losing things themselves that they refuse to extend help to others. This is not the mindset of a country that will succeed. It is the mindset of a country in a death spiral. It's the same mindset that gave us Brexit, of course. Sad.
This is the reality of today's polity. Years of right wing positioning via tabloid journalism has created a nation of people embittered and hardened. Bemoaning their lot whilst demanding policies which make their lot worse. Meanwhile the man waltzes away having taken ever more money.
BJO and his ilk demand that the opposition go All In on ending this depravity. Just tell people they will make the man pay and all will be good. Except that it won't - most voters are conditioned to favour the needs of the man having been told the man's needs are their needs (e.g. STOP THE BOATS).
The first step has to be to win power. Blair understood this, as did much of the Labour movement. The problem with Corbynism and post-Corbynism is that crankies swept in and radicalised so many in the movement (mea culpa) even if only briefly. Which is how we find ourselves here. The overton window is way over to the right, you only win by being electable within the window, hence the need to compromise a long way to move it back to the centre.
Plus, the great stagnation in the UK since 2008 or so has meant that "there is no money, so your only hope is a zero-sum grab from someone else" is a superfically rational way of looking at the world. 2016 was partly a vote for that; Vote Leave to guard the gates was a much more powerful message than Vote Leave to go out into the world. (Global-minded leavers are another of those groups who were tactically smart but strategically dumb).
What that worldview misses is that it ought to be possible to grow the economy and benefit from those fruits. But instead of sowing the seeds so we can harvest their crops in the near future, we are in a mindset that we might as well eat them now. Flipping that mindset looks like needing some principled dishonesty and a decent slice of luck.
I don't totally agree with this, but it makes the point that we're in a pickle;
My claim is that the UK is now a lot more like Poland than it is like the United States in terms of the kinds of growth it needs to do – driven by improved use of existing technology and inputs, and accumulation of capital, rather than driven primarily by technological advancement. With the exception of a few sectors like AI, we are so far behind the frontier in terms of economic development that worrying about technological progress doesn’t make much sense, and at worst is a serious distraction.
There is a deeper point here.
What the UK is pretty fair at *is* technological progress . Something come out of a lab - announced in the papers etc.
What we are poor at is the unacknowledged gap after that. Between the lab and the consumer.
People were talking in a previous thread about various tech billionaires and their effect on the technological landscape.
What Elon was right about, in a couple of instances, is that the gap between the demo and a product you sell is big and needs effort to bridge.
Hence actually getting a 4 second EV to market and creating the supercharger network. The initial car was the productionisation of the custom work that a couple of car mod outfits in LA were doing.
An EV needs batteries - so you need to build factories measured by the square km. Hoping that they will just turn up isn't going to work.
Or actually building a cheaper rocket. Lots of people had all kinds of ideas and schemes for that. But you need to actually turn that into aluminium, steel and niobium.
There's some truth in that - but equally in large sectors of the modern economy (chip manufacturing; telecoms; power electronics) we have very little industrial base.
The new battery factory to be built in Somerset at least means that industry won't disappear. It's not enough on its own - but it's planned to be around four times the size of the Nissan plant.
The industrial base is a side effect actually getting ideas from "demo" to "consumer".
That's where the original industrial base came from - fucktons of ideas being made into actual products.
Not so simple with something like chip manufacturing. That's decades of 'side effect' - a great deal of whose trade is between the manufacturers themselves.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
Thanks. The added requirement to register each new romantic partner sounds like a blackmailers charter.
Particularly for gay officers who have not "come out". This has clearly not been well thought out.
How would Chief Inspector Huw Edwards have dealt with the situation?
I am not sure I understand your point, or is it just an attempt at a homophobic witticism?
Why would it be that?
To expand: as has been abundantly pointed out, HE did, as far as we know, nothing illegal. Is it just to put his hypothetical opposite number who happens to be a copper not a news bod, into a different position via the internal rule book?
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
Thanks. The added requirement to register each new romantic partner sounds like a blackmailers charter.
Particularly for gay officers who have not "come out". This has clearly not been well thought out.
How would Chief Inspector Huw Edwards have dealt with the situation?
I am not sure I understand your point, or is it just an attempt at a homophobic witticism?
He's agreeing with you.
Really? Oh. If that is the case I apologise. I understood it to mean that Huw Edwards is an example of why all gay people should declare all legal relationships even if they are a little unusual to the taste of Sun readers?
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
Thanks. The added requirement to register each new romantic partner sounds like a blackmailers charter.
Particularly for gay officers who have not "come out". This has clearly not been well thought out.
How would Chief Inspector Huw Edwards have dealt with the situation?
I am not sure I understand your point, or is it just an attempt at a homophobic witticism?
Why would it be that?
To expand: as has been abundantly pointed out, HE did, as far as we know, nothing illegal. Is it just to put his hypothetical opposite number who happens to be a copper not a news bod, into a different position via the internal rule book?
A lot of ‘I agree with Tony/Keir’ going on here I sense.
I am colourblind - is that a pink backdrop, or is the future of Britain a drizzly grey?
It is spam pink with a striation of darker pink. Drizzly grey does seem more likely.
Oh dear, I thought the stripes were some sort of photographic interference. You know it's bad when they can't even be bothered to use a stock image of some sunlit uplands.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
What is the Met's new slogan? "Abstain or rape" would have obvious drawbacks. Are there any other perfectly legal activities the Met should ban? Scrapping their old cars, for instance, as scrap metal was often a front for armed robbers, or having their hair cut, since barbers might be a front for money-laundering?
My guess is this policy will be welcomed only by those who want prostitution outlawed anyway.
Indeed. Awkward subject, but there are still many who have an illiberal belief that any kind of sex that is outside their particular morality or point of reference should be legally restricted (see the recent bruhaha over Schofield and Edwards which was really about homophobia). There are obviously huge criminality aspects to prostitution which cause concern. There are those like Cyclefree who will refer to it as "men thinking they can buy women" which is a moral position rather than a rational one because there is a quite large number of men who offer themselves for sex and the titillation (stripping etc.) of both men and women. I suspect that those who are not coerced into it by criminals see it as a way of earning money and their right to do so, and it is not the state's place to judge them or criminalise them. Their right to sell their services (and their bodies if you want to see it that way) as they see fit, and do not want their clients to be criminalised either. That is the liberal position.
The ban is on police officers not just on male ones. So it applies to female police officers buying sex.
The issue is not whether prostitution is legal or not. But the fact that police officers who become punters are placing themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or an appearance of one. That is incompatible with policing without fear or favour, with good policing and also puts them at risk of blackmail. Quite why people do not see this beats me.
As for the argument that if you don't let police officers have sex with trafficked women who will likely have been drugged, abused, beaten into having sex with punters, they will rape other women so carry on, nothing to see here despite all the very many reports we have about the appalling misogynistic culture the police have and the faintest possibility that a culture which allows male police officers to buy sex from abused women might help create and perpetuate that misogynistic culture which everyone says they want to get rid of right up to the point it requires men to stop doing something..... when it all becomes too difficult etc.,. well .......
We're into St Augustine's territory, aren't we. "Lord. Stop me being a misogynist. But not yet."
Police officers can have sex like everyone else - by being nice and charming to the people they'd like to have sex with. Just a thought.
I see that the Met has now banned its officers from paying for sex.
We might pause and ponder why the Met ever thought that permitting this was a good idea, given the number of criminal offences associated with prostitution and the conflicts of interest that would inevitably arise if police officers were also punters.
Still, we must be grateful that somewhere in the Met there is someone with a working brain.
Gosh
That takes some thinking about. Does any other employer do this? Is paying for sex a thing any protected characteristic subgroup does more than average, which would make the rule vulnerable?
I have no idea re other employers.
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I am not an Andrew Tate, treat-women-as-objects wannabe, but if men differentially feel the urge to use prostitutes then a job rule against using them potential falls foul of the Equality Act just as a rule against menstruating would. Secondly there's a strong possibility that a prostitute ban turns men in the direction of abuse and rape, because the sort of bloke who is incinvenienced by a prostitute ban is probably not the sort of bloke who thinks Tell you what, I'll enter into a rounded and mature long term relationship of which sex is just one facet.
Unintended consequences.
Where (besides here) has this new police anti-prostitution requirement been announced? I can't see it on the main news sites or in a quick scan of the Met's development plan.
Thanks. The added requirement to register each new romantic partner sounds like a blackmailers charter.
Particularly for gay officers who have not "come out". This has clearly not been well thought out.
How would Chief Inspector Huw Edwards have dealt with the situation?
I am not sure I understand your point, or is it just an attempt at a homophobic witticism?
Why would it be that?
To expand: as has been abundantly pointed out, HE did, as far as we know, nothing illegal. Is it just to put his hypothetical opposite number who happens to be a copper not a news bod, into a different position via the internal rule book?
Comments
I am sure that we will get to the point where with enough practice and "FFS just make this work" compromises we can cut the delays largely back to where they were. In part by basically abandoning much of our TCA for stuff inbound to the UK. Still there for export of course, but we don't want to export to the horrid EU anyway.
After 9/11 a general was giving evidence to a Senate committee. After being harangued for a while about how unprepared they were, he pointed out the following.
1) Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russians were giving up on their bomber force.
2) After the collapse, they didn't deploy their bombers to the Northern bases that could actually reach the US. One way.
3) Given most of the bombers were propellor driven, this would mean that a plane based attack on the US would take *days* to implement.
4) If he had come to the Senate committee on 9/10 with a request for funding to mount a 24/7 air defence setup, to shoot down civilian airliners that are hijacked, he would have been locked up as a dangerous madman.
Uxbridge & S Ruislip (Johnson) 7210, 15.0% (over Lab), 9.2
Somerton & Frome (Warburton) 19213, 29.6% (over LDs), 26
Selby and Ainsty (Adams) 20137 (over Lab), 35.7%, 6.4
What's the word on the ground from Tory activists? Presumably they know they'll lose S&F, but what about the other two? Are they bothering to campaign much?
Selby is the most interesting contest. Lab candidate Keir Mather is 25yo. That's five years younger than Stephen Twigg was when he beat Michael Portillo, overturning a majority of 15.563 (31.8%) . A Tory hold a possibility? But I might want a better price than 6.4.
Another question: by what procedure did the three MPs resign their seats? Does anybody know? Can they explain, please, in 1-2 sentences. Specifically: who filed what paper with what office, who accepted the resignation, and where was the decision gazetted?
I've long held the view that the British so-called constitution (which only mental contortionists who've obediently pre-decided it's a constitution think actually is one) is made up as they go along. This current example seems grist to my mill. Did any of the three MPs actually take the Chiltern Hundreds or Manor of Northstead? No? Then what did they do? What changed, when, and who decided?
First up they'll happily take a draw as that retains the Ashes for them.
Days 4 and 5 are very very iffy weatherwise.
If Aus are going well they won't declare. & To win they'll have to bowl England out twice.
Good luck with that.
This policy might be well-intentioned but sounds recklessly naive and likely counterproductive.
A Member wishing to resign applies to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for one of the offices, which he or she retains until the Chancellor appoints another applicant or until the holder applies for release from it. (Every new warrant issued revokes the previous holder).
It is usual to grant the offices alternately; as this enables two Members to retire at precisely the same time. Indeed, on 17 December 1985, fifteen Ulster Unionist MPs resigned on the same day.
https://www.parliament.uk/globalassets/documents/commons-information-office/p11.pdf
What that worldview misses is that it ought to be possible to grow the economy and benefit from those fruits. But instead of sowing the seeds so we can harvest their crops in the near future, we are in a mindset that we might as well eat them now. Flipping that mindset looks like needing some principled dishonesty and a decent slice of luck.
I don't totally agree with this, but it makes the point that we're in a pickle;
https://www.sambowman.co/p/britain-is-a-developing-country
My claim is that the UK is now a lot more like Poland than it is like the United States in terms of the kinds of growth it needs to do – driven by improved use of existing technology and inputs, and accumulation of capital, rather than driven primarily by technological advancement. With the exception of a few sectors like AI, we are so far behind the frontier in terms of economic development that worrying about technological progress doesn’t make much sense, and at worst is a serious distraction.
This is not an attempt to be trite or arsy. This is just the truth. Most people just don't live their lives like that. I could buy into your notion of "truly", but it's not a no brainer.
Ms Hall, a London Assembly member and former council leader, defeated Moz Hossain KC, a criminal barrister and political novice
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/susan-hall-tory-conservative-candidate-sadiq-khan-london-mayoralty-b1095333.html
But the police are in a special position because of their ** coughs politely ** duty to enforce the law (I know, I know but it has to be mentioned). They cannot do their job if they put themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. (See some of the details around Couzens behaviour to understand why, for instance.)
And if police officers think women can be bought and sold it's not hard to see why that might lead to the sort of anti-women behaviour we have seen in far too many officers against their female colleagues and female members of the public and as described in far too many reports.
As for the Equality Act point, the obligation is on a service provider not to discriminate on the grounds of one of the protected characteristics. The police are not a service provider of prostitution services. At least, they are not meant to be. I simply do not see how the EA would bite though a legal case claiming that stopping men who are police officers from using prostitutes is discriminatory would certainly be grimly entertaining.
I post repeatedly about weaponised ignorance and stupidity, not as insults but just as reality. We are all ignorant of whole piles of things. Where the right weaponise this is by creating plausible lies (e.g. "we hold all the cars") which sit in an area of our ignorance, and then repeat repeat repeat.
The result? Ignorant and stupid. I know- I've been both.
The marginal tax increase required has nothing to do with how the existing tax is raised and spent.
Which is another way of saying that they've picked the loon.
There must be someone who is both acceptable to Conservatives and to Londoners as a whole... mustn't there? Just don't ask me who.
It's a very bad protent for the 2024/5 Conservative leadership election, though.
Unintended consequences.
Please stop being like Trump, it doesn't suit you.
What the UK is pretty fair at *is* technological progress . Something come out of a lab - announced in the papers etc.
What we are poor at is the unacknowledged gap after that. Between the lab and the consumer.
People were talking in a previous thread about various tech billionaires and their effect on the technological landscape.
What Elon was right about, in a couple of instances, is that the gap between the demo and a product you sell is big and needs effort to bridge.
Hence actually getting a 4 second EV to market and creating the supercharger network. The initial car was the productionisation of the custom work that a couple of car mod outfits in LA were doing.
An EV needs batteries - so you need to build factories measured by the square km. Hoping that they will just turn up isn't going to work.
Or actually building a cheaper rocket. Lots of people had all kinds of ideas and schemes for that. But you need to actually turn that into aluminium, steel and niobium.
12 June 2023: "The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed Nigel Adams to be Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead."
12 June 2023: "The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson to be Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern."
19 June 2023: "The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed the Honourable David John Warburton to be Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead."
Where is all the money going? Extracted by the spivs who have gamed the system.
This is why I keep advocating the StateCo model which is so successful elsewhere in western Europe. State / Regional ownership of commercial business. How do we build homes without mega objections and unaffordable prices? Have the community itself own the company building and then owning them. Same with energy. Transport. The list goes on.
And because they are commercial businesses some will do better than others. And spread out into other areas both business and geographic.
Which is how we can sit on a bus run by a French StateCo, whilst paying out energy bill to a different French-owned StateCo. And ordering products online for delivery by yet another French-owned StateCo.
And whilst we do so? Because we've been made Stupid and Ignorant by the right wing media, we then put down our phone and say "state ownership doesn't work, I don't trust Labour because they want to nationalise things."
But why won't he get yours? Do you think there is a magic wand he can wave on day 1 to fix every issue? He has set out 5 missions, one of which is "break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage".
Keeping the 2 child policy is incompatible with that mission, so it will go. Just not immediately because saying "this is our lead priority" means other stuff gets pushed aside. And hands the Tories a stick to beat him with.
A case can be made for many with McIlroy and Scheffler obvious big chances but their odds at the top of the market are crazily short.
With the six dangerous out-of-bounds and the killer rough you need an accurate driver. Also, it may be windy.
I've backed these:
D Johnson 40/1 e/w (odds have now gone)
B Koepka 22/1 e/w BetVictor 1/4 12345
W Clark 70 bf to win and 12.5 bf to finish in top 5
S Lowry 46 bf to win and 3.0 bf to finish in top 20
T Kim 85 bf to win and 4.0 bf to finish in top 20
Will hopefully give me a run for my money.
By all means make them declare such relationships with colleagues or people they have been involved with through work, ban them from relationships in their reporting line and members of the public involved in a current investigation, but asking them to declare every sexual partner is way over the top.
And human nature pretty much guarantees such a policy wont be followed.
What section of the Equality Act is potentially being breached here? I’ve got a call on the EqA with some other employment lawyers this morning and I’ve no doubt this …erm…refreshing take will make all the others take notice.
And what does "romantic partner" mean? Is it okay if they pull each other off at the station?
What if the "partner" gives them a false name? Or do they have to check ID? Or perhaps the kind of saddo who finds a cop attractive is always ready to show her ID anyway?
Quite funny to imagine the cops squirming over this.
Rather than visit prostitutes, abstain, or rape, they could try the fourth alternative of actually acquiring rounded personalities and finding partners on that basis.
There are many and varied reasons why people support the benefit limit and almost none of them have anything to do with the 'meanness' or selfishness of people. I should say I don't agree with the benefit limit but, as with so many other things, I am also not willing to simply fall into the trap of ascribing selfish/uncharitable reasons to the views of others.
We are continualy being told there are too many people in the world. We are also being told there are too many people in the country and that we need to build millions of new houses to provide homes for an ever expanding population. We are told that the expanding population is bad for the planet and we are all heading for disaster as a result. Under such circumstances with such a message being continually pumped out by all sides for their own diverse reasons (and I personally think the message is wrong) it is no surprise that, when asked, people are supportive of a policy that implies a limit on the expansion of the population.
There are a significant number of younger people who are taking an active decision not to have children because they think it is bad for the planet. Again I disagree with them but this is a very strong message amongst the young these days. So why on earth, having made that decision to limit their own families, would they support a policy of giving money to others so they can have more kids? It is not a passive/selfish view, they are actively deciding that there are too many people and bringing more children into the world is selfish and harmful because that is the message being pumped at them all the time.
But for the left and the remainers it is much easier to just blame nasty people with nasty parochial views and tie it to Brexit/the right/the Tories rather than going out and actually trying to find out why people have such views.
Please shoot me down if I am wrong. I am genuinely interested.
The new battery factory to be built in Somerset at least means that industry won't disappear. It's not enough on its own - but it's planned to be around four times the size of the Nissan plant.
Tories have always got off on working class child poverty.
And as you say, it also seems impractical. Look love, we've got on so well that normally I'd ask you back to my place but can it wait a week so I can fill in police form XX2B in triplicate? Steve is your real name, right? V or ph?
That's where the original industrial base came from - fucktons of ideas being made into actual products.
5 ...
I'd reduce it to one, for environmental reasons.
But the more substantive point is right imo; to add a bit more, even if you disagree with the cap (I do) you might come to a conclusion that, when finances are tight, it is a less bad way to save money than other things. I also disagree with this but can respect those who make such a trade off.
It doesn’t make anyone any more selfish than eg being happy to buy a takeaway coffee rather than giving the £3 or so to an anti-malaria charity. We are all hypocrites in our own ways.
Labour's housing policy is a good example of the former - but does local government have the capacity to do much more than that over the course of a single electoral cycle ?
Any such transformation of the economy would necessarily be a longer term project - and the required a political consensus which I'm not entirely sure exists.
The next government needs to be deeply pragmatic in how it advances - and entrenches - any such plan. Or it will just get reversed.
So the simplest mechanism is zero immigration. Vote Reform, go Green?
Of course I am not serious but there is a certain weird logic to such an argument if that is the route people are going along.
Have Labour decided on that yet ?
I mean life on earth, which is the only life we know about in the universe, will probably be wiped out at the latest in a few billion years when the sun explodes, possibly much sooner if a big enough space rock heads our way. Maybe human civilisation is the best chance for life to survive these things.
To expand: as has been abundantly pointed out, HE did, as far as we know, nothing illegal. Is it just to put his hypothetical opposite number who happens to be a copper not a news bod, into a different position via the internal rule book?
When the strips do appear
But there are no stripes there
That's a moiré
dum de dum dum dum...
The issue is not whether prostitution is legal or not. But the fact that police officers who become punters are placing themselves in a position where they have a conflict of interest or an appearance of one. That is incompatible with policing without fear or favour, with good policing and also puts them at risk of blackmail. Quite why people do not see this beats me.
As for the argument that if you don't let police officers have sex with trafficked women who will likely have been drugged, abused, beaten into having sex with punters, they will rape other women so carry on, nothing to see here despite all the very many reports we have about the appalling misogynistic culture the police have and the faintest possibility that a culture which allows male police officers to buy sex from abused women might help create and perpetuate that misogynistic culture which everyone says they want to get rid of right up to the point it requires men to stop doing something..... when it all becomes too difficult etc.,. well .......
We're into St Augustine's territory, aren't we. "Lord. Stop me being a misogynist. But not yet."
Police officers can have sex like everyone else - by being nice and charming to the people they'd like to have sex with. Just a thought.